The Thinkings of a Winemaker

The 2025 growing season was a complete change from what we were used to from 2023 and 2024.  In these previous seasons we experienced our normal rainy April and May, but then when June came around, we ended up drying up completely. This is especially important for grapegrowing because that's the period when the vines go through bloom and set their fruit. Dry weather during fruit set yieds smaller berries which in turn yields a higher skin to juice ratio in reds and better concentration in the whites. 2025 on the other hand had an extremely wet June and July, and it wasn't until August that the rains finally stopped. We were fighting disease all summer long. We only had a couple of heat spikes in the 90s, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of the dreary summer. The vintage would have turned out completely different if the rains hadn't stopped and we hadn't been granted a beautiful September and October.  The 2025 Chardonnay was barrel fermented in 2-year-old ...